Effect of inhomogeneities and substrate on the dynamics of the metal-insulator transition in VO2 thin films
Abstract
We study the thermal relaxation dynamics of VO2 films after the ultrafast photo-induced metal-insulator transition for two VO2 film samples grown on Al2O3 and TiO2 substrates. We find two orders of magnitude difference in the recovery time (a few ns for the VO2/Al2O3 sample vs. hundreds of ns for the VO2/TiO2 sample). We present a theoretical model that accurately describes the MIT thermal properties and interpret the experimental measurements. We obtain quantitative results that show how the microstructure of the VO2 film and the thermal conductivity of the interface between the VO2 film and the substrate affect long time-scale recovery dynamics. We also obtain a simple analytic relationship between the recovery time-scale and some of the film parameters.
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